Many computer systems place data volumes in one or more data stores. The storage may be intended for short or long periods, but it can happen that one or more portions of information must be extracted from time to time. Extraction can, for example, be required for purposes of indexing, because an indexing application being executed in the system may need the information extracted before the indexing can be performed. Such indexing (and associated extraction) can be performed on the textual contents of the data store(s) and also on metadata that may be included in any of the items.
The content located in the data store can be accessible using one or more application programs, and the program(s) can be configured such that a user can make one or more changes in a stored item. Upon receiving such a user edit, some conventional programs modify the original item content, and thus store a modified version of the item in a single file. Other conventional programs, in contrast, are configured not to modify the original item with the change(s), but rather to store the change(s) separately and then perform an update on the item contents at runtime when access to the item is sought. However, if the unmodified item is accessed using another program or component that is not configured to recognize the separately stored change(s), it is possible that the existence of the change(s) will not be detected.